The “Economist” summarizes the difference between the Reagan conservatives and the nationalist MAGA crowd: “National conservatives no longer see the West as a shining city on a hill (as Reagan once put it, editor’s note), but like Rome on the other side of the world. brink of collapse – decadent, corrupt and on the verge of collapse during a barbaric invasion.”
In his inaugural speech as president, Donald Trump already raved about ‘American carnage’. He now regularly repeats this nonsense in his campaign speeches, accompanied by a promise to restore America to its former greatness.
Isolationism has a tradition in the US
At the same time, the ex-president wants to liberate his compatriots from the ‘woke’ elite of Davos-believing globalists and take them back to a so-called paradise state from the past, a state in which the US, protected by two oceans and provided with a lot of land and raw materials, a long nose at the rest of the world and – isolated and happy – only concerned with his own business.
This idea has a long tradition and is called isolationism. The last significant bout of isolationism occurred in the 1930s. The Americans regretted their involvement in World War I and isolated themselves from Europe. Customs fences were erected against international trade. The lofty dreams of a League of Nations once floated by President Woodrow Wilson were quietly buried.
After World War II, however, American isolationism finally seemed to be a thing of the past. President Harry Truman launched the Marshall Plan, an aid package to rebuild Europe. The Atlantic defense alliance NATO was founded against the communist threat from the USSR – both with great success, as it turned out. The United States had definitively become the policeman of at least the non-communist world, or as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright put it, the “indispensable nation.”
Reagan-era conservatives had no intention of turning back the wheel of history. On the contrary, in the era of neoliberalism, customs barriers were broken down and international trade was promoted as much as possible. Reagan also left no doubt about NATO; after all, the goal was to bring the ‘evil empire’, the Soviet Union, to its knees.
With Trump, isolationism is now making a comeback; Republicans – once the staunchest supporters of free, international trade – have become chauvinistic protectionists. The ex-president is doing his best to stoke this mood, and he also has some tricks up his sleeve. As Simon Kuper puts it in the Financial Times: “The world needs the US, but the US doesn’t need the free world. This is the terrible logic behind Donald Trump’s worldview. If he were to abandon Ukraine and other democracies as president, it would in no way harm the United States.”
In fact, even after three decades of neoliberalism, the United States is far less dependent on trading partners than other countries. The World Bank has calculated that only 25 percent of US gross domestic product is affected by international trade. By comparison, in France and Great Britain this ratio is 70 percent, in Germany it is 100 percent.
Why the US can turn its nose at the world
In other words, unlike Britain, which suffered an economic wreck due to Brexit, the US can actually afford to turn its nose at the rest of the world. The ex-president takes full advantage of this. Kuper again: “Trump realizes that the untouchable US can do it alone. They can reduce their allies to customers. In his vision of NATO as an American-led protective community, he sees Russia as the powerhouse that can frighten Europe.
With his comments about NATO, Trump has again played this card and thereby thrown Europe into turmoil. At the Munich Security Conference – something like the WEF of the defense and defense ministers – his threats to expose NATO members to Russian attacks if necessary are the main topic. Norbert Röttgen, a leading security politician in Germany, explains: “Europe will soon have no choice but to defend itself.”
The combination of Russian aggression and a possible new American isolationism is a shock that has an impact. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, called on EU members to massively increase their defense spending via the “Financial Times”. “We need to spend more, we need to spend the money better, and we need to spend it in a more European way,” she explains.
Von der Leyen is referring to the fact that defense spending within the EU is still far too poorly coordinated and based too much on national interests. According to the President of the European Commission, this has been overtaken by events. “The last 20, 30, 40 years have been about securing peace within Europe. For the first time, the threat now comes from outside.”
More and more leading military and defense experts are warning about Vladimir Putin’s desire for expansion, pointing out that the Russian president has already turned his country into a war economy. Troels Lund Poulsen, Denmark’s defense minister, believes Russia can test NATO’s defense resolve in just three to five years. There have been similar warnings from his colleagues in Sweden, Britain and Germany. It is therefore no wonder that almost all NATO countries have now massively increased their defense spending.
Politically, a development is taking place that until recently seemed unthinkable. While in the past it was the conservatives who defended NATO through thick and thin and called for higher military spending, today it is the liberals and the Greens. The conservatives have now transformed themselves into national conservatives and are trying to achieve a contradiction in terms: a nationalist international.
Following the example of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, they want to form a global front against liberalism. The Economist quotes Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, as saying: “President Trump is currently the leader of this movement, but it will continue to exist. We are now building the necessary institutions. The movement will not go away. It becomes more powerful and bigger.”
Viewed this way, it is clear why NATO is a thorn in the side of Trump and national conservatives. However, how they want to reconcile the different, sometimes conflicting interests in a ‘nationalist international’ remains their dirty little secret for the time being.
Soource :Watson
I am Amelia James, a passionate journalist with a deep-rooted interest in current affairs. I have more than five years of experience in the media industry, working both as an author and editor for 24 Instant News. My main focus lies in international news, particularly regional conflicts and political issues around the world.
